What America lost when the MDA pulled the plug on the Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon

My family didn’t have a lot of money, and I suspect that is one reason why we didn’t have many traditions. We did, however, have one tradition that occurred at the same time every year on the first weekend before school really began. Christmas might be celebrated in October with the purchase of a new TV or in July with a trip to Disneyland and the promise that there would be relatively few gifts under the tree. However, the Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon always happened on that long weekend in September, and we always watched.

During my younger years, the weekend of the telethon was the only time I didn’t have a bed time. I was allowed to stay up as long as I wanted to watch it. I think the latest I ever stayed up to was 5 a.m. Generally, I was asleep by 2 or 3, but when I got up the next day, the family would already be tuned in. And we would always donate. Even if it was only $5 or $10 total, mom said we donated because she was glad that she had 2 healthy children. We would watch intently as the tote board included our donations, then my sister and I would whoop and holler and say that our money was in the latest count!

While the MDA insisted that it didn’t lose any money by not having the telethon, as it insisted that it didn’t lose any money when Lewis left and the telethon was shortened to a couple of hours. The United States lost 3 very important things.

The telethon was a shared experience for many Americans. In my younger days, I remember more than one network carrying it, and that was when there were only a couple of channels. People had little to no choice but to watch it. This may seem like a bad thing to those who revere choice over everything, but a common experience to draw on is important in order for people to be able to engage with each other. This shared experience didn’t involve sports, and it was big enough to draw the biggest names in entertainment – Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson, and Robin Williams to name a very few. These celebs attracted the audience to the television. It gave people something to talk about.

The numbers on the tote board that seemed to get bigger every year only represented the donations coming in from the people who watched the show. It didn’t include any of the money that corporations, fire fighters and police organizations raised. These millions of dollars were brought in from ordinary people. From families struggling like we were, from rich people watching in their mansions, from middle of the road, who called in to pledge. It showed that if the people, not the corporations and organizations, but the individual people came together, they could achieve awesome results.

The telethon was a way to feel like being a part of something bigger than yourself. While we didn’t always live in the best of neighborhoods and times weren’t always good, Jerry Lewis gave us the opportunity to reflect on our health and on what we had. Maybe we weren’t able to donate more than $13, but that small amount of money was enough to help us feel what charity, kindness, and love could do, even if it is in the form of a cash donation.​Regardless of the effect Jerry Lewis and his telethon had on the MDA with its fund raising and awareness raising efforts (and it had a huge effect), it did much more to bring America together and show us that individuals can have a huge impact when they work together. It brought us together and gave us a shared experience. Those things are worth more than anyone in the United States could ever realize, and we, as a nation, miss them sorely.